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Comment by 12xo | Hacker News Reader

Social media is fast food. If you eat it all the time it makes you feel awful and will destroy your mental and physical health. But its cheap, easy to get and tastes really good...

So stupid people love it.

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Remove "stupid", and this is otherwise accurate.

Yeah, that one word put a distastefully elitist spin on an otherwise excellent comment

When I slip down the rabbit hole every now and then and end up deep in a multi hour social media/internet binge when I could be doing something else entertaining as well as constructive, I am definitely being a stupid person.

"stupid people" = stupidity endemic to the people

"people acting stupidly" = people in temporary states of stupidity

So true. I realized recently that social media makes me think that I hate people that I actually like! You get a quick hit of superiority, but it's the problem the most effective tool I've ever seen to divide us.

Did you get a quick hit of superiority when you agreed that "those" people are stupid, or did you consider that divisive?

This comment chain is mildly toxic and (ironically) proves that HN is similar to social media. Any political post seems to have the same divisiveness that traditional social media has.

That being said, HN does have logical and helpful technical discussion that does not resemble the kind of social media that people are talking about when they say "social media". The incidence of toxicity is much lower. That is why I believe HN is social media yet much healthier than, for example, facebook.

From this thread it would appear that one is either a hypocrite for complaining about something they participate in or arrogant for complaining about something they don't. Here, both.

It seems like a needless exercise to classify which type each person is. We can just take both cases with a grain of salt, address their points skeptically, and move on from doing psych evals on a couple sentences about something else.

My comment was probably too snarky, but do we not have a duty to at least gently push back against our in-group labeling the out-group as stupid?

That's a good point, and I agree. But I do think it would be more pragmatic to justify why the outgroup isn't stupid than it is to go after the people who are saying so. The anger response you'll get for saying someone is arrogant probably won't get the open-mindedness you'll need to persuade someone to act differently.

Even just pointing out that the word being said is 'stupid', but the actual in-group/out-group divide is technical literacy or systems-awareness. And really just in the frame of social media. Perhaps there should be a word to describe the local ignorance that everyone engages in when they are turned off and relaxing.

You're on social media

And?

Then it seems the poster does find some value in social media. I'm saying that HN is social media - descended from Reddit, in fact - to point out that the popular stance of Facebook being inherently evil seems to forgive this website for doing the same thing.

This kind of scare has happened with all media: games, TV, film, fiction books. If there's a difference between the fast-food social media and this website, I'd like to hear what it is.

Well to start forums are a self selecting group of like minded individuals. To be an active member usually requires thought and care, intelligence and skills such as reading comprehension and critical thinking... Oh, and the whole system isnt built to game your senses in order to mine minute data points about you that is then sold to companies who then masquerade their content as ads all while pretending that they're doing good work for the world...

But honestly, if you cant tell the difference between Social Media and a forum, maybe you should step away from the net all together. Read some books, learn a hobby. Go outside. Make some real life friends... For it seems as if you too close to the forest to know that its made up of trees.

Its just like fast food. If its all you eat, you have no idea what real food tastes and feels like...

Beyond ads, everything I interact with on social media is through choice.

I'm aware of how targeted advertising works: it reminds me of seeing toy adverts between children's TV shows.

Thank you for the life coaching.

Oh, sorry. I didnt realize you are super-duper smart. Maybe because your posts are anything but... Or maybe you're just being sarcastic and just not a very good writer... Either way, thanks for contributing. It really makes a difference.

You're implying the commenter is hypocritical for being on a social media site while criticizing social media. I don't think that's necessarily true, since all they said was that _too much_ social media was bad for your health, not that any amount was.

Even if they spent all their time on social media, their warning against it wouldn't necessarily be hypocritical. If an alcoholic tells you that alcohol is addictive, you should believe them.

I don't think what you have said here is wrong. I do think that judgements about social media are made from the point of view of people who hear about the evils of big (fast food) websites mostly second-hand while wrongly believing they don't participate in it.

My understanding is that this website was created was to make YC more famous among the kind of people who would post here. Posts are indexed by search engines and, after some period, undeletable. Like all social media - including all the way back to usenet, before the phrase existed - flaming, high-tensions, and consequences are non-negligible. I've seen someone write a post as an insider that got a reply from their CEO asking them not to do it. The sum of this is that YC's advertising is creating a platform for people to harm their careers.

Yet, despite knowing this, I continue to browse because I find value in the content that exceeds the dangers. I imagine others feel the same and hope that, by viewing HN under the same umbrella as Facebook etc., they might not view the negatives as fatal. At least not to the point of demanding other people leave their jobs.

Fair point, and well stated.

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

In this analogy the parent poster would not be seeking to improve society, they'd be seeking to end it.

I don't think that's true.

You can eat fast food once in a while and still be very healthy. They're not necessarily advocating for (metaphorically) shutting down all fast food restaurants, just making a point about over-consumption side effects.

At least that's how I read it.

That's how you read it because that's what they said. Not sure why the original reply felt the need to add "stupid" as "So people love it" makes the same point. Mister Gotcha is probably replying implicitly to the addition of 'stupid' to make a point. Except now that they've stuck their stakes in the ground and are getting defensive, let the pedantic internet slap-fight commence

HN is a forum, but very different from places like Facebook and Reddit.

If that is a notable categorisation then what is the difference that makes forums better?

I feel the trigger of social media is getting dopamine-like reward signal when people like/share your posts. Its underlying acceptance of "you" aspect of it, rather than the idea itself that you share. In a forum, being an anonymous user, it doesn't affect you as much on a personal level which allows for a more rational discussion by detaching the "personal" side of you from it. Of course, that is only true in theory as we are all prone to taking everything personally (myself included) but I try consciously to change that.

This website has rapid interaction from other users and visible upvotes that add up over time to create a personal score that nets you extra benefits. If I worked for Facebook, I'd like stronger evidence than amateur psychology for me to feel morally compelled to give up my livelihood.

Edit: furthermore many users post with real or pseudo-real names that reward them with real life social clout.

For example, is there any revenue generated from people visiting users' profiles on HN? But there is revenue from ads on Facebook and Instagram profiles that millions subscribe to. There is no "subscription" like cult on this forum (afaik). I do not see content based on whether user has high points or not. Unlike social media, where people with more followers get more visibility. So I think the scoring vs followers is not really comparable.

I use adblocker so I do not see ads on HN. Correct me if this is different from your experience.

I can imagine, as you point out, the impact on "social life" for users with real/pseudo real names. Back in the day forums were used for anonymous discussions when you would not trust strangers on the internet. I guess now the opposite is trending.

I've expanded on this in another comment but I do think that YC gain a real but indirect financial benefit from operating this website.

>Back in the day forums were used for anonymous discussions when you would not trust strangers on the internet. I guess now the opposite is trending.

While writing this I was thinking of the famous 'LINUX is obsolete' thread.

This website literally has upvotes and comments - two ways millions of people get dopamine.

So Social Media is any digital tool that allows people to interact? I really dont understand your definition as every human interaction across all mediums could be defined as social media. And yet the term and the tools did not exist prior to 2003ish... So was Usenet social media? Was Aol and Prodigy?

Yes. Sometimes new terms come in later? Not really surprising.

I was getting dopamine hits on 4chan and GameFAQs in 2005 when I was 12. I'd call it social media.

The only difference between HN and reddit is tighter moderation.

I think image based social media is a beast of its own.

The emotional swings I get from images far exceeds what I get from text.

While true, I feel like HN is a different variety of Social Media than Facebook. You're not going to see vacation photos, screenshots of tweets, and memes everywhere. It's a forum yes, but it's very different from places like Facebook and Reddit.

A forum isnt social media unless you define social media as any medium that allows people.... But to play along, I dont eat fast food often, maybe once a year. But I still eat it and afterwards I always say to myself, "how and why do people eat this all the time"....

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